


National Treasure 2.047: Roadtrip of Mysteries

by cnoocy



Category: National Treasure (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5464865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnoocy/pseuds/cnoocy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Federal fugitives can't just fly from Washington, D.C. to South Dakota...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ben Driving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weasleytook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weasleytook/gifts).



The sun was rising over the Midwest as Ben pulled into a roadside diner. “All right,” he said. “Time for me to get some sleep and some breakfast, and for one of you three to take over driving.”

“Don't you mean some breakfast and some sleep?” Riley asked, stretching and unbelting from the back seat where he and Abigail had been sleeping. “I mean, you need to eat first, unless you've figured out how to eat while snoozing.”

“I put them in order of importance,” grumbled Ben.

“Come on, boys,” said Abigail, running her hands through her hair as she shook out the knots from a night on the headrest of a moving SUV. “Let's get some coffee and then snipe at each other.”

“For coffee I can move,” said Patrick, yawning. “Did you drive all night, Ben? Where are we?” 

“Just past Columbus, Ohio. We should get to the Black Hills sometime late tonight if we keep moving.” 

Coffee was hot and plentiful, and the four treasure-hunters were enjoying the end of breakfast when Abigail turned to Ben and said, “So, what was the extra page from the book?”

“What extra page?” Riley turned to Abigail.

“At the Library of Congress, Ben sent us ahead to escape the Feds while he still had his phone and the book out. So he must have photographed an extra page or two from the book, and it must have been important, because it almost got him caught. So what is it?” The rest of the table turned to look at Ben. 

“It's, uh, not important right now,” Ben stammered. “I haven't even really looked at it yet. I thought we could take a stab at it later.”

“Well, why that page?” Patrick asked. “Were you flipping through the pages and thought, ‘that page looks like a clue for yet another treasure?’”

“No, nothing like that. I looked at the page as a favor. For, uh, the President.” Ben looked at the others, who were all staring at him. “When he told me where the book was, he asked me to look at that page too. But I didn't even have time to read it, so I took a picture instead.” He opened his phone and showed them. “You can't even read it on this screen.” 

“Well, let's blow it up, then,” said Riley, starting to get his laptop out of his bag.

“Riley, we can't sit in the restaurant solving mysteries on your laptop. We're fugitives and we need to get to South Dakota.” Abigail put her hand on Riley's arm to stop him. “Just grab the phone and work on it in the car while I drive.” She dropped some cash on the table and pushed a sleepily protesting Ben out the door.


	2. Abigail driving

“So what do we have?” Abigail asked, as they passed a sign advertising the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Riley opened the page on his screen. “It's a page of text. Handwriting looks familiar, but I can't place it...”

Abigail glanced over while Patrick leaned over Riley's shoulder. “Jefferson,” they said simultaneously.

“Okay.” Riley rolled his eyes. “Here it goes.”

> M.L. reports that the item has been cached. It is in a very secure location, and, as requested, I have not been given the location. All I have is the following cypher and message. “We have left the key, as advised by Richard, with Charles. Allow him to introduce himself, and then take the rest in order. Rlsdc grmbj dskxq wfkpb ilqsx afsnj tgvuw mvjaw vrgtf qtdpf wlbvh olhqf rzhyc zopfu qhhtj ineri ckmpx ihhnh imnyd ynjzv jpnag glcru asbsc xfzsr.” I do not wish to let slip this secret unduly, but S. Cha. may one day merit it.

“Did you say S. Cha.? As in C-H-A?” Abigail asked, gripping the wheel tightly.

“You let the line and a half of gibberish go, then ask me about Cha? Yes, it's C-H-A. As in... Chase.” Riley and Patrick turned to look at Abigail. “Friend of yours, Ms. Chase? I thought you were German.”

“Chase isn't a German name. I took my stepfather's last name when my mom married him. And a good thing, because going through middle school as _Avigal Fuchs_ would not have been fun. But my stepfather is a descendant of Samuel Chase, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Supreme Court Justice.”

“So did Thomas Jefferson hide a present for your step-ancestor somewhere?”

“Almost certainly not a nice one. Jefferson tried to get him fired in 1804. He's still the only Supreme Court Justice ever to have been impeached. If Jefferson hid something for him, it's probably some sort of evidence against him. So can we figure out this message? Who is Charles and where is his key? Who is M.L.?”

“Did you say 1804?” Patrick said. “Could that be Meriwether Lewis? As in Lewis and Clark? The timing is right. They could have given him this report when they got back.”

“But who are Charles and Richard who have the key?” Riley asked. “Some people in St. Louis that Lewis gave the key to? Maybe they wrote the secret down, and Lewis hoped he'd keep it? “

“Three may keep a secret,” started Abigail…

“...If two of them are dead! From Poor Richard's Almanac, by Ben's namesake.” Patrick slapped the back of his seat, making Ben mumble in his sleep and turn toward the window. “Charles Floyd was the one member of the expedition who died on the trip. There's a monument at his gravesite in Sioux City.”

“In Sioux City? Riley, can you look at the map? Is that on our way to Mount Rushmore?”

Riley unfolded the map and studied it for a few minutes. “It could be, if we don't turn at Iowa City and take I-29 from Omaha instead.”

“Let's do it. Now, about that code…”


	3. Patrick driving

The first thing that Ben said when they pulled over to have lunch in the early afternoon was “Why are we still traveling west?”

Abigail unlocked the doors and stepped out. “We're checking something out on the other side of Iowa. It's a quick detour.”

“Wait, is this about page 47? I thought we would find one treasure before running around the country looking for the next one.”

“Yeah,” said Riley, “but this is essentially on the way. Don't worry, we'll still get to Rushmore.” 

They got some sandwiches to go, and Riley and Abigail took the back seat while Patrick took the wheel. Ben found some music as they got back on the interstate. Then he sighed, and asked, “So what do we know?”

Riley opened his laptop again. “The page is a note from Jefferson about a secret that Lewis and Clark hid somewhere, and may be related to Samuel Chase.” Ben raised his eyebrows and looked at Abigail, who nodded as Riley continued. “The exact location is enciphered, and the key is hidden with Charles Floyd, whose memorial is in Sioux City. But the cipher is really strange. It doesn't look like a cipher from that time.”

“Well, Jefferson gave them a cipher sheet. That should be a modified Vigenere cipher.”

“That's what I said,” interrupted Patrick. “But the letter distribution isn't right for that. There's no periodical repetitions.”

“Playfair?” asked Ben.

Riley shook his head. “No way. I've spent a lot of time with Playfair lately and this is not it. This looks like something cryptographically secure, something you'd see from the last century.”

“Cryptographically secure, Thomas Jefferson… could they have had a Jefferson Wheel cipher? It's a set of wheels with a randomized alphabet on each one, and you stack them on a rod in an order, which is the key, then spin them so your message is on one row, and write down any other row of letters. That would have been portable, and the key is easily hidden. And it's secure. The M-94 ciphering device works the same way, and the Army was using that until 1944.” Ben furrowed his brow. “But the only two good replicas are at Monticello and the National Museum of American History.”

“So,” began Abigail.

“There’s a big Fourth of July naturalization ceremony at Monticello every year,” said Patrick. “The staff will be busy, mostly on the grounds.”

“Yeah,” said Riley. “I can get in and cut the museum security while the ceremony is going on, then you can get in and out before the speech is over.”

“So,” Abigail tried again.

“They have open house tours,” said Ben. “If we can get early tickets for those, we can slip away from the tour and be inside already when the ceremony starts.”

Abigail pulled out her phone and found a name. “Hi, Sylvia? This is Abigail Chase from Archives. How are things at National History? Oh, good. Do you have a transcription of the Jefferson Cipher Wheel? No, I'm traveling right now, so can you send it to my phone? Oh, just spending time with the family. Thank you so much. Give my best to Marie. Oh, I will. Thanks again.” She turned to Riley, smiling, and handed him her phone. “So, can you turn that into a decoder by the time we get the other side of Iowa?”

Ben and Riley turned and stared at her.

* * *

The Sergeant Floyd monument was casting a long shadow over the Morningside area of Sioux City when they pulled into the parking lot. They walked up the path and froze when they saw a National Park Service officer standing next to the 100-foot obelisk.

“Good afternoon,” she said, tipping her hat. “Let me know if I can answer any questions about the monument.”

Riley stepped forward. “Yes, ma'am. We're doing a scavenger hunt and we have a clue about this place. Can you help us with it?” 

“Well, I can try. What do you have?”

“Okay. We already know that this is a clue about Charles Floyd’s grave. It says, ‘Allow him to introduce himself, and then take the rest in order.’ Do you know what that might mean?”

“Well, let's see. Could it be about his grave marker?”

“Very possibly.”

“Well, the original washed away sometime before 1857, and the replacement was stolen in 1894.” She watched Riley's face fall. “But don't worry, we know what it said. The inscription got written down in the expedition journal. ‘Sergt. C. Floyd died here 20th of August 1804’. Do you want me to write that down?”

“Yes, please.”

She pulled out a park flyer and wrote “Sergt. C. Floyd” on the paper, then turned and asked, “what did you say the clue was? Are you looking for a word, or what?”

“Actually, ma'am, we're looking the numbers 1 to 30. In some other order.”

“Hmm.” She thought as she wrote the rest of the inscription down. “Maybe you're supposed to use his rank and name as numbers? Like this?” She wrote “19, 5, 18, 7, 20, 3, 6, 12, 15, 25, 4” on the paper. “Then you can just use the other numbers…” She continued writing as Riley and the others admired the view. “Here you go.” She handed him the refolded flyer.

“Thank you very much.” Riley shook her hand, and they got back in the car.

“A scavenger hunt?” asked Abigail as they got back on the road. 

“‘When confronted with an authority figure, gain their trust by minimizing the stakes.’ Did none of you read my book?”

“It looks like someone did,” said Ben. He handed the open flyer back to Riley and Abigail. They looked at the bottom where the ranger had written a note: “Good luck on your ‘scavenger hunt’, Mr. Poole. Sincerely, Ranger Paroo. P.S. I loved your book.”

Riley hooted and flipped open his laptop. He typed the numbers into the program, and the screen filled with banks of letters.
    
    
    RLSDCGRMBJDSKXQWFKPBILQSXAFSNJ
    AWNZJSZNJUSXHUCBEUCZFYLDFPHVEG
    QQZPZPMTUETAFZHFSBXCNPJEAKDUKY
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    WAHXXYDHMCALEHPABCIHMKFNNIAYCK
    BZTRVIUCTIFOTKEZDISRADVTPXICVS
    YPFWAVPQQALTJMGKGJJPEAGRGSTZQD
    FXVNYWWAEDBIACONMZFMLZZISFXLZX
    

| 
    
    
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    MAKESABROADCURVENORTHEASTWARDS
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| 
    
    
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| 
    
    
    IMNYDYNJZVJPNAGGLCRUASBSCXFZSR
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---|---|---|---  
  
“Are those the wheels?” Abigail asked.

“Yes. The text from the message is at the top, and the wheels are lined up underneath it.”

“Why is it split into four blocks?”

“The actual device had thirty wheels,” said Riley, “and they would’ve had to reset the wheels after every thirty letters. So I split the message up into banks of thirty, in case they used a different row each time. Now we just need to hope we find some rows that are made of sensible text.”

“There's one: ‘one mile up the... Corvus... river where it’”
    
    
    RLSDCGRMBJDSKXQWFKPBILQSXAFSNJ
    AWNZJSZNJUSXHUCBEUCZFYLDFPHVEG
    QQZPZPMTUETAFZHFSBXCNPJEAKDUKY
    XYQUKUHDFZPHMSJTJQYYUSNHYMGDDW
    PCKYBBYKIQMFWTAPHLZUKQHCIHWWYV
    _ONEMILEUPTHECORVUSRIVERWHEREIT_
    HHCQPNQOXXZKVQZDWEDOYJPBCUKMFQ
    ZMMLQRJXVOYPXGIMCGVVSXSJMDCAAN
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    NIAVEHTWNPUGZNBCPXTACIWUKTNTPF
    GSXAGJOFCWXDPVUGVHMNOREQBBUGSM
    CRRJSAGIYLOVLIVILWUXRFCYUZMBWE
    LEGHFCBERRVNBAXYNFBTPOXVDNBFBC
    WAHXXYDHMCALEHPABCIHMKFNNIAYCK
    BZTRVIUCTIFOTKEZDISRADVTPXICVS
    YPFWAVPQQALTJMGKGJJPEAGRGSTZQD
    FXVNYWWAEDBIACONMZFMLZZISFXLZX
    

“Wow. Is the next one on the same line?”
    
    
    TGVUWMVJAWVRGTFQTDPFWLBVHOLHQF
    VISYOXLPZLAWYOYJZVCKJYONCVNQZM
    SSNMLETYHRFBSQTLPPXATPMTMCUJNE
    KRZQEHOSGCLZRGBXVRYNGSYROJMXEC
    EEQLGJGBSIBQNDUSLAZXZQUIWLBPKK
    _MAKESABROADCURVENORTHEASTWARDS_
    JZECFCDVLDSGZLXOBXDHQJKDLYIKYD
    UPCBXYULDJTDPFPCDHVRCXTEQRTOIX
    IXMSVIPWWUPVLBEGGWHPOHIHJTXNFJ
    NLLTAVWFKEMNBEGIMFOMRVDCVBFTAG
    GWOIYWRINZHLEYOYFCNBPCWWZZHGHY
    CQPGCGZECQZOTPQAEIQZMUEBRNDBOW
    LYIOJSMHYTYTJJCZSJKCAGCJEIGFGV
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    BNJKKUYQMOQSKNJNHKEULWFGBSRCLQ
    YHUVBBEATKJXHVAWUUWIIBVAUFKZJN
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    DOFPDKCGVPOMQSWROTFLDZSYIGJIVZ
    

“No, it's on the next one: ‘makes a broad curve northeastwards’... ” Abigail ran her finger down the last bank of letters. “I see it: ‘the item is buried three feet west of”
    
    
    RZHYCZOPFUQHHTJINERICKMPXIHHNH
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    YERPANLGJDYXAZCCVLYYHFBMGZXAQN
    FAGUYRTJUJCAKSHGLSZUQOOFSNFIZU
    

Riley shook his head. “Of what? There it is, ‘a gigantic rock on the westward side.’ One mile up the Corvus River, where it makes a wide bend toward the east, the item is buried three feet deep under a gigantic rock on the westward side. Now we just need to find the Corvus River.”
    
    
    IMNYDYNJZVJPNAGGLCRUASBSCXFZSR
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    _AGIGANTICROCKONTHEWESTWARDSIDE_
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    UHSUMCJGABQKRIECVFZYMPSIHIXCPH
    

Patrick spoke up from the driver's seat. “Here, Ben,” he said, pulling a book out of his jacket pocket and handing it over, “Make yourself useful.”

Ben looked at the cover. “The Lewis and Clark Journals? Where did you get this?”

“I walked over to the gift shop and picked it up while you were all talking to the ranger.”

“Okay,” said Ben, putting on his reading glasses. He flipped to the index and read aloud. “Corvus: September 16th 1804. September 16th… ‘a small creek which we named Corvus, in consequence of having killed a beautiful bird of that genus near it…’ and there's a footnote. ‘The Corvus River is now called American Crow Creek, and flows through Oacoma, South Dakota.’ I don't think Oacoma is going to be on our US Interstate map.” A many-folded sheet of paper landed on his lap. “A South Dakota highway map, Dad?”

“They had the nearby states’ highway maps out for the convenience of travelers. I thought it might be useful.”

“This is ridiculous,” Ben muttered, but he flipped open the map. “Well, what do you know. Oacoma is on I-90 just after it crosses the Missouri. It's a few hours away.”

“We'll stop for dinner and switch drivers then,” said Patrick, hitting the gas.


	4. Riley Driving

Riley pulled onto the shoulder just after the bridge. Across the road, he could see the sign for American Crow Creek. He grabbed his bag of fries from dinner and munched on them as Abigail, Ben, and Patrick pulled shovels and flashlights out of the back of the car.

“Riley! You want to give us a hand?” Ben yelled.

“I'm still eating. You guys had the drive to finish your food.”

“The restaurant isn't even half a mile from here. You could see it if the hotel wasn't in the way. Put the fries down and pick up a shovel.”

Riley put the fries back in the driver's seat and grabbed some tools. They all clambered down the bank and proceeded down the creek under the bridge.

“Well, there's the rock,” said Patrick, shining his light on a boulder on the shore. They staked out a large square around it and started digging. 

It was Abigail's shovel that first hit the box, making a hollow sound. She dug around with her hands, excavating the metal-banded wood while Ben and Riley got more dirt out of the hole. A few minutes’ work revealed a wooden object covered in wax, about the size of a pizza box.

“Well?” Patrick asked.

Abigail picked up the box and handed it to him, then stepped out of the hole. “It might be empty, or deteriorated,” she said.

“You won't find out if you don't open it,” said Ben. He set the shovels across a couple of large driftwood logs to make a table.

With sure hands, Abigail chipped off enough of the wax to open the box. It contained a single sheet of paper, covered with writing and intricate drawings, with a large wax seal at the bottom. “Those are British royal markings,” she whispered. “Specifically George the Third’s.” The others aimed their flashlights at the paper as she skimmed the page, summarizing as she went. “First is all the introductions, all the king's various titles. Interesting, it's addressed to the British Parliament. Here's the actual text. To Samuel Chase, born in Somerset County in the colony of Maryland in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and forty one, We do grant… oh _Scheibenkleister_...”

“What is it?” Ben asked.

Abigail took a deep breath to compose herself. “It's a barony. Jefferson arranged for the king to grant Chase a barony. I don't know how.” 

“I thought you said Jefferson didn't like Chase,” said Riley. “Why would he get him a barony?”

Abigail shook her head. “This would have ruined Chase and his entire family. The idea of nobility was abhorrent to the Founding Fathers. And it would have painted Chase as a secret Royalist. If this had been revealed at the time, we'd say ‘Samuel Chase’ instead of ‘Benedict Arnold’. The whole family would have had to flee the country. I am retroactively furious with Jefferson for doing this.” They stared at the paper.

Patrick broke the silence. “Well, is it still good?”

Abigail's hand went to her mouth.


	5. Epilogue

As Ben walked away with the President, Abigail leaned over and whispered to Riley, “‘What’s on page 47?’ That’s laying it on a little thick.”

“Like Ben said, we’ll need time to figure out all the implications. And your dad needs to go through Parliament and Congress if he wants his barony. So a little ‘dumb Riley’ for the Secret Service? It might help.”

“We did just clear Ben’s family of treason. We should take a breather before having to do the same for mine.”

Riley looked around at the agents. “We don't really need to worry about it. I mean, what are the chances of a barony containing some ancient mystery with a treasure and a conspiracy?”

Abigail swatted him in the shoulder.

“Stop it!” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Chase's barony is fictional, though Jefferson's impeachment of him is historical. The cipher wheel is semi-fictional, in that Jefferson designed it, and the M-94 used the same functionality, but there's no evidence that one was ever created in his lifetime. I am indebted to _United States Diplomatic Codes & Ciphers, 1775-1938_ by Ralph E. Weber for cipher information.
> 
> Thanks to my beta readers D, J, M, and B.


End file.
